Republican candidate for governor Randy Brock shakes a voter's hand at the polling place in South Burlington. Brock, along with many Republican candidates, lost on election night.

Many political observers felt
the GOP candidate for Auditor, state senator Vince Illuzzi, had a good chance of
winning his race. But in the end he lost to Democrat Doug Hoffer. Illuzzi said having an "R" next to his name
turned out to be a liability.

"As I campaigned this summer
I had to spend a lot of time distinguishing myself from the national Republican
ticket," said Illuzzi. "And unless you follow politic is very closely you tend
to assume that the Vermont Republicans are like the national Republicans which
by no stretch of the imagination are we."

The lone statewide Republican
to win was incumbent Lt. Governor Phil Scott and he bluntly addressed the
future of his Party in his acceptance speech.

"It's not easy being a
Republican here in this state, even a moderate like myself," said Scott. "There
are some who imply that the Vermont Republican Party has become irrelevant but
tonight first and foremost I need to say this, it's a democracy every single
voice is important and no voice, no voice is irrelevant."

Middlebury College retired political science professor Eric Davis says
the demographics of the state are working against the Republicans.

"If you look at the counties
where close to half of Vermont's
population lives, Chittenden, Washington, Windsor
and Windham, the Republicans were wiped out."

And Davis says Republican leaders need to reflect on the future
of their Party.

"So the Republicans really
need to figure out where they're going from here and a hard right conservative
oriented strategy such as was pursued by Randy Brock and advocated by
Vermonters First that strategy's not going to be successful."

Jack Lindley is the chairman
of the Vermont Republican Party. He says the Party "has nowhere to go but up."

"We have a great opportunity
in front of us. Part of politics is you know sometimes when you get kicked in
the shins and are going land on the ground," said Lindley. "But you've got to
pick yourself up and dust yourself off and move forward and we're kind of in
that position where we're trying to get that accomplished right now."

A GOP SuperPAC known as
Vermonters First, spent roughly a million dollars on the Treasurer's race and
40 House districts. Lindley says the
group has little to show for their spending and thinks SuperPACS weaken the
organizational structure of the State Parties.

"I think the analysis clearly
shows that their impact was at the margins and that leaves the responsibility
of the Party to be the vehicle and the instrument to move forward the political
operations in the state of Vermont."

Former Republican Governor
Jim Douglas was elected to four terms while Vermonters were also voting for
many national and state Democratic candidates. He thinks the Party faces
several challenges.

"I think sometimes there's a
situation where people don't feel good about recent success and so it becomes
harder to recruit good candidates to run because they don't think they're
likely to succeed," said Douglas. "So I don't know there are lots of different ways to
look at it I'm not sure ideology is the whole story."

Douglas says he's convinced that the Republican Party will
make a comeback in Vermont and he thinks Lt. Governor Phil Scott will help lead
the way.